Some Lesser Known Facts About Allyson Felix

Meb Keflezighi, originally, is from the country Eritrea (in the Horn of Africa). He and his family, in 1987, came to the United States via Italy.

Meb is the third eldest son out of the ten children in his family and his father Rossom was a revolutionary in the freedom of Eritrea, due to which, he had to move to Adi Beyani to escape Ethiopian soldiers and their brutal massacres.

Due to the ongoing war, Meb used to regularly come across death of Eritrean friends and neighbors.

Keflezighi saw the first car of his life when he was 10 years old and ran away from it because he thought it’s a death machine.

It was Meb’s mother that wanted to flee from Eritrea as she was afraid that her activist husband might be killed by the Ethiopians.

Rossom, his father, stayed in Milan, Italy for 5 years until he could afford to bring his family there. In 1986, at the age of 11, Meb watched TV for the first time and was appalled, that how can so many people fit in such a small box.

They were 8 family members when they moved to a 3-bedroom apartment a year later and grew into a family of 12 members living there.

Meb’s dad happened to be a very dedicated father who would do as many jobs as he can but would ask of the kids to just focus on their homework and school.

Running since his school in San Diego, Meb made his way to UCLA Athletics Hall of Fame in 2010.

Meb is a three times national Cross Country champion, winning the US Cross Country Championship in 2001, 2002 and 2009.

Post 1983, Kelezighi was the first American to win the Boston Marathon. His victory was glorified by the fact that the competition consisted of African favorites which he left behind, making his personal best of 2:08:37.

Mr. Meb is the only Marathoner to have won the Boston Marathon, the New York Marathon and an Olympic Medal.

He does not train in the traditional way, instead he has a nine-day cycles training. He also does fitness and core-strengthening routines and fuels his body with high protein and five servings of fruit.

Meb has released an autobiography called Run to Overcome, that is co-written with Dick Patrick.

He has been a champion, despite the fact that he has had his hip broken in the 2008 Olympics Trials, which makes running really hard actually. Many thought it was the end of career.

He told that he stays in pain for four days after the marathons.

When he finished ninth because he ignored his coach’s advice and ran out of energy in the final stage, he said to him, “You just saw me running my last marathon”. Of course, it wasn’t!

He has appeared on Late Night with David Letterman.

Meb had never run before he landed in the US.

He had the names of the bombing victims written on his bib during a race.

He also is the oldest person to win a marathon.

Kegleghi was attacked by a German Shepherd dog, who attacked on his neck and Meb thought its the end of his life

Meb’s had his first job at McDonalds in the US.

He runs along a bicycle at the speed that he needs to maintain to win a marathon.

He trains for around seven hours, out of which running is the easy part.